The Bourbon Chronicles: Kentucky Artisan Distillery (KAD)

We’re really thrilled to have this notable distillery basically in our backyard of Louisville. Our guide provided a fantastic history lesson about how bourbon evolved into what it came to be and is today. Its affordable price and convenient location means we’ll definitely recommend it to any of our friends and family that may be in town.

Bourbon Trail Location

Kentucky Artisan is among the smaller bourbon trail distilleries. It’s (a fortuitous) 11 minutes up the road from us and roughly 22 minutes, 20 miles, from the Louisville metropolitan area. We take all of our in-town guests there.

The most well-known bourbon produced at Kentucky Artisan Distillery (KAD) is Jefferson’s Reserve — named after one of our nation’s most innovative inventors. Fittingly, given the experimental nature of their master distiller. Their Jefferson’s Ocean line for example, is truly unique, due to the fact that their product is aged at sea in barrels. IMHO, as someone beginning to dip her toe into the bourbon waters, the Jefferson’s Ocean line is pure innovation.

Bourbon Tasting & Tour – KAD

Name	Tour Time	Tour Name	Cost	Address
KY Artisan Distillery (KAD)	1 hour	distillery tour with tasting	$11.00	6230 Old Lagrange Rd Crestwood, KY 40014

Food

While there’s no food establishments available on site, it’s literally right down the road from local gems like Hive and Barrel Meadery, 3rd Turn Brewing and Backside Grill, which all share the same property. Alternatively, if you’re so inclined, I recommend booking an afternoon tour at KAD and following it with a visit to nearby Watch Hill Proper to enjoy a bite and one of their craft cocktails sourced from the library of over 1,800 bourbons on hand.

Bourbon Tour & Tasting highlights

The history lesson mentioned above was what set our tour experience apart. Most other distillery tours focus mainly on their individual legacy and bourbon making process. Since KAD is so small, they spent a good deal of time talking about how bourbon came to be — and why particularly in Kentucky; we were surprised not to hear the limestone filtered water among any of those factors.

I was really impressed with the Ocean bourbon. It’s aged at sea between 7-8 months, and each voyage is different from the last. It’s available for purchase in their gift shop but brace yourself, it retails for about $60+ USD. While their products are very good, they don’t really have anything that sells for under $45/bottle.

Louisville bourbon trail rating

We give Kentucky Artisan Distillery a 4 out of 5 Ice Cube rating. While it’s one of the smaller operations (the lack of any on-site food is an automatic deduction), KAD is still impressive. Plus, we’ve come to find paring this bourbon tour with other, larger operations is a fun difference to observe in terms of production process and product. We were really impressed with our tour guide and how knowledgeable he was about the history of bourbon. There were probably about a dozen other folks on the tour with us too which made for a fun, intimate experience.

We returned again to KAD in March 2025 with our friends visiting with their toddler, Teddy. He loved the artwork and met us at the end in the tasting room where our tour guide produced kids coloring books and crayons. It was very thoughtful.

They had some new expressions to try but we still ended up purchasing the Tropics from the Jefferson’s Reserve line. Also fun, we got a sneak peek at the packaging for a new expression releasing this year: Trackside. Back at home, we enjoyed an evening of libations and home-made tacos.

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